New: Appetite for BlackBerry!

I don't know about you, but I can't wait for all of the holiday cooking and baking that will soon appear at my table. There's nothing like feeding two addictions at once (one being the BlackBerry of course). Every year, it seems as though someone brings a new dish. Recipes are scribbled down or recited quickly and exchanged. Sometimes recipes are photocopied or printed out and left in a variety of drawers. When it comes to finding a long forgotten, now sought after recipe, it can become quite a challenge. This is especially true if your recipe box looks more like a paper recycling bin. Fear not, fellow food fanatics, Appetite is on the job!

SimpleLeap Software, the folks behind Cram, helps you satisfy your hunger for organization with this unique application. With Appetite, you can keep track of recipes and search for or create new ones. Your grocery lists and ingredients can be managed as well. I think SimpleLeap Software is on to something; Cram can help students study and Appetite will help them manage healthier meals, eliminating the Freshman 15!! Give in to your cravings and read on.

Take two cups....

the main menu

The main menu has a colourful, retro feel to it. The way you operate the main menu is exactly like your BlackBerry's native media application's main menu. From its menu, you can access four sections; My Recipes, Get Recipes, Grocery Lists and Ingredients.

My Recipes

This section will contain recipes you have either downloaded or created on your BlackBerry. Recipes are separated by 52 distinct categories. Like a pair of stretchy pants, there's always room to add more categories. Selecting and opening a recipe will show you various information including;

Name of the Recipe

Source

Cook and Prep Time

Serving Size

Ingredients

Directions

Any of this information can be modified as well. Advanced options include; assigning delicious photos for the recipes, emailing the recipe or share your recipe with fellow appetite users online. SimpleLeap offers a couple of different ways to view your recipe directions. I especially love the Step Mode, where you can view the directions one step at a time in a big, bold font. To make shopping trips easier, a grocery list can be created with a click of the trackball. Appetite accesses the ingredients for a selected recipe and automatically inputs them into a list. We'll look at the list later on.

click by click and step by step directions

Get Recipes

Don't know of any great recipes? Download them! The Get Recipe section grants you access to various channels, which are continually being added. Having a look at the Appetite channel, you will see the familiar recipe categories. The recipes entries display their name, source, cook time and even its rating. If images are assigned, they can be viewed as well. If you feel adventurous enough, you can click to download, selecting a category to place it in. You can then access them as discussed in the My Recipes section.

download shared recipes

Grocery Lists

Here you can view the name of the grocery lists, the number of items in the list and the total cost of the list. As mentioned before, a grocery list can be generated from a recipe's ingredients. Appetite also includes a generic list, where items can be chosen or created. Each item can be marked as having a coupon, or use notes to add specific instructions. You can also modify items; you may need 4 eggs instead of 3 or change the cost to the sale price. When finished, you can either go shopping, or send the list to someone else and make them do it! Appetite will allow you to check off an item with a trackball click. Lists can be used over and over, and can be created for a specific grocery store.

easily managed grocery lists

Ingredients

Here is a complete list of ingredients that can be found in all of the categories. Any downloaded recipes will also have their ingredients added to this section. In later versions of Appetite, I'm hoping to see the ability to send ingredients from this section to a grocery list.

options, options, everywhere

It's always nice to share, so SimpleLeap lets you create a free Appetite web portal account. You can now upload recipes to share. Help the world become a tastier place.

Last bite

Stick a fork in me, I'm done. Appetite is a simple idea, which is powerfully executed. I'm impressed with the ease I experienced while creating a grocery list. There's so much detail given in the directions, ingredients and lists. Management can usually be done single-handedly. I'm looking forward to watching the online community grow, and to have access to increasingly abundant recipes. Appetite has a trial period available - the full version can be found at the CrackBerry store for only $9.99. All these recipes right before the holiday season. I will definitely be using this to full advantage, while keeping myself festively plump!

Reader comments

New: Appetite for BlackBerry!

This sounds like a cool app. But honestly, anyone who cooks anything more then Cup-o-Soup is going to get their hands dirty. The last thing I want to touch when covered in cooking ingredients is my BB. I think I'll keep my recipes on index cards.

Sounds like an interesting concept, especially the grocery list as I am forever forgetting my list when I go to the store but I never forget my BB:) However, wondering about the ease and convenience of use of the program. Might be this is better in theory then reality!! Will look forward to seeing some reviews.

Kinda disappointed with the recipe selection. It's extremely thin. I don't think I'll be paying 10 bucks for it, a cool idea, but I'd absolutely like more recipes to choose from before I thought about paying for it.

The recipe selection is provided by the users and channel providers. Appetite's channel is filled with shared user recipes (as the description on the phone states) and the other recipes are provided by channel providers that have different cooking websites, blogs, and cookbooks.

Appetite channel providers have NOT YET been allowed to submit their recipes, but these providers have LOADS of recipes that they are willing to share. These channel providers will be submitting their recipes within the days to come.

The recipe selection will absolutely grow, but it is not the main function of Appetite. I would continue to use the trial and see how you like it as a grocery list and/or recipe storage separately.

My wife generally makes the grocery list and I stop by the store on the way home to purchase the items. It would be nice if the list could be remotely updated and then checked off as items are purchased...anything else is just a pain.

If we have that option, where are the instructions for doing so? I found no place for importing anything.

Edit: My apologies. I found the option to email the grocery list, however it appears that you can only receive the grocery list by email but I can't find to way to import and check off as the above poster inquired about.

my apologies, I mistakenly typed "import". You're right, you can only email the grocery list.

but the import feature is a very good suggestion, we will consider adding this feature to a future update of Appetite.

To check off an item, you click the trackwheel over the item in your grocery list (or use the menuitem option, or press the item on the Storm) and it grays it out as well as increments the "checked" count at the top.

and a wife I cook mostly all day. breakfast before husband goes to work, breakfast when the kids wake make lunch for the kids make lunch for hubby, dinner for the kids then dinner for hubby (he comes home at 730pm) so I am cooking and reheating most of the day. So anything that can make my life easy I am all for it lol!! but like the first post said when I'm cooking I dont want to be messing with my phone. I usually have a child on my hip so no free hands. But I do love the grocery list thing because right now I have to go on my laptop and print out my list with my menu on it so all help is great. when I get my storm I will consider this but not too sure I will change I'm a little OCD lol!!

Finally! Finally! Finally! I've been looking for something like this ever since I got my first blackberry. I had something like it on my Palm Pilot (which is now about as useful as a paper weight) and really missed not having it on my Blackberry, so much so, that I was actually considering learning how to program Blackberry apps so that I could fill the void. Thankfully, someone beat me to it. I'll be sure to snag this app ASAP!

If the other recipes will be coming along in awhile, what good is our 10 days free trail now? By then I will have been left with a lousy impression of the program as I am right now.

I must admit I do use my BB for all my grocery shopping, I would be lost w/o it. That being said, I also am an avid cook and instead of coping recipes and wasting paper, needless to say toner,I simply email them to my BB. I don't want and would not get my BB dirty so all I have to do is touch my trackball.

I have to say, I've been using this app since yesterday, and I am quite impressed. I usually never buy apps, but this one has sold me. I used it in the store yesterday and the trackball check-off was a little TOO simple. I like the fact that you can organize your list by aisles too, AMAZING.

I've been using my BB to do list for quite sometime for the grocery list, and that just wasn't working. I can tell this is going to be my most used app, period (even beyond my Viigo, I can only get so much news,lol).

For recipes, I haven't used as much, but when I did, I liked that it was quick to enter the recipes. I actually shared a few with the other users online from my phone, this too was quick and easy.

I've been waiting for exactly something like this. Up til now, I've just been using the built-in Memo app to track my ingredients list. Yeah, I don't want to gook-up my 'Berry while I'm cooking, but I definitely want to have my recipes with me for when I'm "stopping by the grocery store on the way from work".

I played around with the app for a while last night. (I bought it, too, but that's beside the point). It's definitely well thought out. I suggested a couple of improvements to the SimpleLeap folks for Storm users:

(a) Need to be able to scroll the input screen as the keyboard covers up some of the fields (like the add ingredient page, for example).

(b) It would be nice to page from one step to the next in the Step mode by using a finger swipe (like when viewing emails on the Storm).

I just thought of another one: It would be nice to be able to create a recipe on something other than the phone and then download it to the phone without having to share it with everyone else. Right now, you can get an account on the software authors website (www.simpleleap.com) and add recipes there, but you are essentially sharing it with everyone else, which you may or may not want to do.

I purchased Appetite about a week ago. I had something similar on my Palm so I had been looking for something for my BB.

I think it's a worthwhile tool, especially if you're like me and you end up going to the grocery store several nights a week because you haven't planned dinners well enough in advance to have the week's groceries on hand. Now I am just a click away from all my recipes so I can take a quick scroll before leaving work, pick out dinner, create a grocery list and stop for all the ingredients on my way home.

I find it a little cumbersome to enter recipes directly into my BB, but the online version is very simple to use and then downloading to your BB is cake. As others have said, there are not a lot of recipes already loaded in the channels, but I'm more interested in adding my own recipes so that doesn't bother me.

I don't think it's practical for use while actually cooking because of the reasons cited by so many here. So I email myself the recipe and then open it up on my laptop instead (saves paper).

I dont really think i will use it in the kitchen as i have all my recipes written down. But i do think i will love having my recipes on my bb. I cant tell you how many times i am in the store and something will be on sale for something i make and i cant remember everything i need. Now i will have my list always with me. I also like being able to add a grocery list as i seem to write them down and then forget to take a pen to check off what i get as i am walking threw the store and then i get home and missed something..

Okay, I downloaded the trial version and it seems pretty neat. What if I find a recipe I like on a food site and I want to get it to my phone? I checked out the online site, and it allows you to "share" the recipe, but you have to imput ingredients just so. I understand that requirement for sharing ... but what if I just want for my own use? Thanks in advance for responding.

It's about time! I love to Grill and finally there is a program that I can not only start loading in my favorite recipe, but that others die-hard grill junkies like me can actually share our grill secrets by uploading to the Appetite program straight from our blackberries! Imagine if a few million of us just add 1 new recipe this will become an invaluable asset. I can't wait for the 4th of July party!

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